Young talent, goaltending must step up if Griffins are to end playoff drought next season

Cory Morse | The Grand Rapids PressGustav Nyquist will be among the talented forwards the Griffins will be counting on next season.

GRAND RAPIDS -- Five wins may not sound like a lot, but for the Grand Rapids Griffins it turned out to be too much to overcome.

With about a week left to go in the regular season, coach Curt Fraser estimated that five wins would be the difference between a return to the postseason and a long summer spent thinking about what should have been.

The Griffins finished with 82 points. Five more wins and the subsequent 10 points would have given them 92, one more than Oklahoma City, which claimed the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.

Five more wins and the Griffins would be preparing to face Manitoba in the first round of the playoffs.

Five more wins and all of the injuries, recalls, early struggles and late fizzles would have been forgotten.

Instead, they once again will watch the postseason from afar after missing the playoffs for the second year in a row and the third time in the past four years.

It’s not a trend anyone is interested in maintaining.

"This isn’t going to happen again," Fraser said. "We went through a real tough year with callups and injuries and all kinds of things, but we’ve got to find a way to be much more stable through the year, if possible, and put us in a better spot."Five more wins, we’re not only in the playoffs, we’d be in first place. It sounds small, but I guess it’s a mountain to climb to make up that many games."

Maybe that’s what the parent club Detroit Red Wings had in mind when they recalled a whopping 15 Griffins on Monday to serve as "Black Aces" during their own playoff run. Maybe observing and practicing with future hall of famers such as Nicklas Lidstrom and Pavel Datsyuk during the Stanley Cup playoffs is exactly the kind of advanced education they need.

The Griffins will need to be quick learners since they will be younger next season.

Jan Mursak and Cory Emmerton -- not only two of the team’s point producers, but top-notch defensive forwards -- likely will be in Detroit, and there’s a chance Tomas Tatar or even Brendan Smith or Doug Janik could be as well. Veteran defenseman Derek Meech should be with another NHL team, and several other veteran free agents may be on the move.

Their presences will have to made up for by a group of talented-but-unproven rookies that includes Gustav Nyquist, Landon Ferraro and Mitchell Callahan.

Fraser is an outstanding coach -- any calls that he should be replaced are ridiculous -- but he will have his work cut out for him incorporating those baby faces into the lineup.

"I think we’ve got to pay more attention to details now -- a lot. The players that we add here, the schedule, everything," Fraser said. "We need to find a way for this group to make up these five games so next year we’re in first, second place and rolling into the playoffs."

For that to even be a possibility, improved goaltending is a necessity. Jordan Pearce did an admirable job in the final two months of the season, but over the course of the full year the Griffins allowed 254 goals, fifth-most in the league.

Of course, Joey MacDonald could have been a big help. When the veteran goalie was signed last summer, the Griffins assumed they would have him for 80 percent of the season. Instead, because of a variety of injury issues in Detroit, MacDonald spent 80 percent of the season with the Red Wings. Flip that and the Griffins probably are in the playoffs.

Even if MacDonald comes back to Grand Rapids next season (doubtful), Peace and Thomas McCollum have to make a significant advancement in their development (perfectly doable).

"Had Jordan Pearce not stepped up, we would have been in a big hole, and we need Tommy McCollum to be better and he’s got to develop quicker," general manager Bob McNamara said. "As a goaltender, you have be patient because they take some time, and Tommy has had a tough time, but there’s still potential there. He’s an extremely talented goaltender and he needs to have a big year."

Frankly, everyone will have to step up. It would be nice to put the onus for this season’s failures on one person, but it’s rarely that simple. Everyone has to accept a piece of the blame, and everyone has to play a role in turning it around.

In the organization’s first 11 years of existence, the Griffins made the playoffs nine times. It’s an understatement to say this recent dry spell has been frustrating.

"It’s something we’re not used to, and it’s not something that we like to have happen at all, let alone in back-to-back years," McNamara said. "Do we expect to be going home at this time of year? Absolutely not. For us, we need to get the ship righted for next year."

Back in October, the Griffins were confident that they would be preparing for the postseason right about now. By that standard, you could say the Griffins underachieved.

In order to make sure it’s fixed by this time next year, they will need to strive to overachieve.﻿